startupi

The 10th Latin Moot Corp business plan competition wrapped up on Saturday. In the morning venture capitalists and market analysts evaluated the presentations of four teams who were finalists from the two divisions critiqued the day before. The Division I finalists (I was one of the evaluators) were Redu and Terminal Logistíca (chosen as best presentation and best written business plan). Division II finalists were Wifli (best presentation) and Sayyou (best written plan). The overall winner was Sayyou. Read more…

Latin Moot Corp’s annual business plan competition is being held this week in São Paulo, Thursday through Saturday. The Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV) holds this competition as a preliminary round in advance of the global Moot Corp, which is held at the University of Texas.

Among the eight finalists one is Argentine, one North American and another from New Zealand. The panelists include investors (Confrapar, Adrenax, Direct Talk and others) as well as experts in various fields (including myself and representatives from Sebrae, Universia, Poli-USP, FGV and Fiesp). The presentations for each startup are available on AngelSoft, an online system for viewing the proposals and creating relationships between entrepreneurs and investors. Read more…

The belief in fast money has long been demystified:  that in this new global digital economy all you need is an idea and you can sell it and get rich. In reality it takes a business plan, a management team and product development to convince investors to give you their support.

Still, you hear plenty of people talking about opening a startup just to seek investment and sell it. This isn’t wrong, but it isn’t the whole story. In Brazil (which is still developing a culture of angel investment in technology startups) and in Silicon Valley (which is full of success stories), there isn’t any single way to make it happen. Read more…

Remember PS10, the competition for the best Latin American startup hosted by Pulso Social? Three Brazilians were among the finalists (Drimio, HelpSaúde and Navegg, which got second place). The winner was a Colombian startup called LetMeGo, which has announced a challenge to find a Brazilian partner.

LetMeGo has a global vision and offers a novel approach to the hotel industry online: the opportunity for travelers to present their itinerary and receive offers from hotels. It’s up and running in English and has investment from Torrenegra Labs. Now the startup is looking for a Brazilian partner to develop a Portuguese version of the system (as well as a  partner to do a Spanish version). Read more…

This week saw the launch of a startup that provides ad campaigns for Twitter for users who want to monetize their Twitter streams.

It’s a concept that’s more narrowly focused than that of boo-box, for example, and more formal than the idea of the often disliked “paid Tweet.” The power of TwittePaga is in its simple and efficient technology for registering participants and tracking the performance of the links. Read more…

ResultsOn Day (sponsored by the magazine ResultsOn: Intelligent Business) was held again recently, to mark the release of a new issue of the magazine. This event was called Black Sheep, as it focused on selecting the Entrepreneur of the Year and the 49 Startups to Watch - all of them involving innovative people who don’t follow the crowd. Read more…